Starbucks

If I could interrupt the comics-talk for a while, I'd like to say a few words about "Starbucks."

I don't know how long they've done this kind of thing, since I've never been one to drink at such coffee establishments regularly, but they've got these paragraphs printed on the side of their cups. I guess they figured that since they were using recycled cups that they had to find a way to use up any of the resources that that process might have saved them. I call them "fortune cookies for hipsters." Anyway, yesterday I get a cup with "The Way I See It #291" on it (which implies that someone was paid to come up with at least 290 more of these things - sweet gig if you can get it), which imparts this wisdom unto me:

"In a world where celebrity equals talent, and where make-believe is called reality..."

...something something something peace and love. Myself, I find it patently hilarious that Starbucks, of all businesses, would actually want to draw attention to this state of affairs. After all, which coffee shop / cafe counts among its target demographic people who routinely deny reality (i.e. hipsters, clueless college students, Che-t-shirt-wearing "radicals" - at least, that's the crowd that I frequently run into)? And which company's whole fuckin' philosophy is "celebrity=talent," or in this case, "celebrity=good coffee," since everything on the Starbucks menu tastes like high-priced shit?

Well, almost everything. I like to pride myself on objectivity, so as disappointed as I am with the usual array of Starbucks foodstuffs, I do try to sample the new products that crop up as often as I can. And the new product this month is called the "Pumpkin Spice Latte."



This curiously orange (reality or make-believe?) beverage is, shockingly, absolutely delicious. It tastes exactly like you'd expect pumpkin pie to taste if you were to liquefy it somehow. This is the single greatest beverage ever devised by the good folks at 5.00/coffee-land, so I urge you to go out and try it today. Or tomorrow, if you're reading this at night. It won't be around for long, so get it while you can.

Don't give into temptation and go for whipped-cream on top of your's, though. That is still undeniably Starbucks, and still tastes like congealed foam.